> Asking doesn't necessarily have to cost money. Time is money Emily, sorry, sad but true. The inconsistency is also bizarre: I can take a photo that includes the big M logo - I don't need copyright permission to include that in my picture - yes, it's a trademark but also copyrighted. > Personally, I think whenever you take something that belongs to > someone else you should always ask. Get real Emily: we're not talking about taking the bread from someone's mouth. There is no real moral/historical justification for copyright: the Roman's had a pretty damned good empire without it. No one will pay for a 60x60 pixel thumbnail, so it has no real value. Using it in that sense would be actually depriving nobody of nothing. > You don't take it and then ask - right? Of course, and if I see a 10 dollar bill on the sidewalk I always leave it there for the owner to pick up later :) > Instead we spend bandwidth and time trying to figure out that Disney > is a bogeyman for forcing us to ask. > Come on now. Get real. Disney IS the bogeyman: that's fairly well documented in about every article I've read on the subject. Jesus, imagine if copyright was eternal and retrospective - the logical extension of the current trend. Imagine no "public domain" ever again. Would the world really be a better place? Bob
